[[055]] Perhaps some formal or fashionable wiseacres may pronounce such simple ceremonies vulgar. And such is the advance of civilization that even the very chimney-sweepers themselves begin to look upon their old May-day merry-makings as beneath the dignity of their profession. "Suppose now" said Mr. Jonas Hanway to a sooty little urchin, "I were to give you a shilling." "Lord Almighty bless your honor, and thank you." "And what if I were to give you a fine tie-wig to wear on May-day?" "Ah! bless your honor, my master wont let me go out on May-day," "Why not?" "Because, he says, it's low life." And yet the merrie makings on May- day which are now deemed ungenteel by chimney-sweepers were once the delight of Princes:--
Forth goth all the court, both most and least,
To fetch the flowres fresh, and branch and blome,
And namely hawthorn brought both page and grome,
And then rejoicing in their great delite
Eke ech at others threw the flowres bright,
The primrose, violet, and the gold
With fresh garlants party blue and white.
Chaucer.
[[056]] The May-pole was usually decorated with the flowers of the hawthorn, a plant as emblematical of the spring as the holly is of Christmas. Goldsmith has made its name familiar even to the people of Bengal, for almost every student in the upper classes of the Government Colleges has the following couplet by heart.
The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade,
For talking age and whispering lovers made.
The hawthorn was amongst Burns's floral pets. "I have," says he, "some favorite flowers in spring, among which are, the mountain daisy, the harebell, the fox-glove, the wild-briar rose, the budding birch and the hoary hawthorn, that I view and hang over with particular delight."
L.E.L. speaks of the hawthorn hedge on which "the sweet May has showered its white luxuriance," and the Rev. George Croly has a patriotic allusion to this English plant, suggested by a landscape in France.
'Tis a rich scene, and yet the richest charm
That e'er clothed earth in beauty, lives not here.
Winds no green fence around the cultured farm
No blossomed hawthorn shields the cottage dear:
The land is bright; and yet to thine how drear,
Unrivalled England! Well the thought may pine
For those sweet fields where, each a little sphere,
In shaded, sacred fruitfulness doth shine,
And the heart higher beats that says; 'This spot is mine.'
[[057]] On May-day, the Ancient Romans used to go in procession to the grotto of Egeria.